


such people in it

by leiascully



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Community: dogdaysofsummer, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-07
Updated: 2005-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-03 06:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius was more than the others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	such people in it

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Marauders  
> A/N: The prompt for this was a photograph, I think.  
> Disclaimer: _Harry Potter_ and all related characters are the property of JK Rowling and Scholastic. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

Remus woke in the early misty hours of the hours and Sirius was gone. There was a little hollow in the pillow where his dark head had been, a few black hairs and a lingering fragrant warmth when Remus pressed his palm to the pillow. Remus pulled a jumper hastily over his ruffled head. In the chill air, his skin felt tight, pulling against the scars. He jumped into trousers - someone's, maybe not his, he couldn't tell. He and Sirius and James wore roughly the same size and none of them had been particularly tidy of late. Peter and James were still snoring in the other bed: they'd only been able to afford one room in this bed and breakfast because it was nearly the end of summer hols and they'd been romping all over Britain. Tonight they would go back to the Potters' rambling house for the last few weeks. But for now, Sirius was missing, and that usually meant trouble in the making.

Over the five years of their Hogwarts acquaintance, Remus had found it was easier to derail Sirius before the trouble managed to manifest than to deal with the often astoundingly nuanced consequences.

He closed the door quietly behind himself and tried not to clatter down the stairs. On the porch he paused: Sirius was nowhere to be found and the motorcycle was gone, but someone had left a broom. Remus touched the handle and the broom quivered. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands to find the tiny gold letters: J. Potter. Perfect. Remus wasn't much for flying, but Sirius could be anywhere, and it was one of those mornings that felt ancient and fraught with wild magic. Sirius was trouble enough with the domesticated school magic. Remus shivered a little and trotted down the porch steps. The grass was full of dew and it beaded on the brown tops of his bare feet. Shoes. He knew he'd forgotten something. This was what Sirius did to him. He swung his leg over the broom and rose into the air, a little shakily.

The mist brushed past his face like the feathery ends of Sirius' hair had as Sirius tossed in his sleep. Remus hadn't slept well: Sirius radiated warmth and he threw his arm over Remus every half hour or so. The electric weight of him had pulled at Remus so that sleep had eluded Remus and now the just-dawned morning felt dreamy and surreal. Remus flew in spirals around the bed and breakfast, listening more than looking. Sirius was not known for discretion and was often heard rather than seen.

But it was the motorcycle that Remus found first, lying incongruously on its side next to the ruins the bed and breakfast's owner had raved about the night before, when it was far too dark to see anything.

"Sirius?" he said, touching down and nearly falling off the broom. The mist was burning off, but the history-swaddled stones muffled his words. "Sirius?"

"Up here, mate." The words drifted down like flower petals. Remus turned his face up to the pale light. It would be hot later. He could feel it in the air like a promise. Sirius was sitting in the crook of steeple and rampart, near the crumbling edge on the dawn-washed face of the ruins. "Come on up," he said, a quiet, indifferent, lordly invitation. Remus reluctantly remounted the broom and rose dizzily through the air.

"Come down," he said when he was nearly at Sirius' level. "The others will be up soon and they'll think...who knows what they'll think. James will be furious that you're out making mischief without him and Peter will convince himself you've taken me hostage or something."

"In a bit," said Sirius, staring at something Remus couldn't see. He didn't really want to turn his head to look; he was already feeling unsteady without the proper support of the earth under his feet.

"When's a bit?"

"Come and sit with me," said Sirius, turning his grey eyes on Remus. "Just for a little while. It's nice here, isn't it, Moony?" He rose gracefully and held out one hand.

The real problem was that Remus could never refuse when Sirius asked something of him. He flew a little higher and a little closer, took Sirius' outstretched hand, and made an awkward sort of scramble that got him onto the ruins, where he pressed his back against the wall and his shoulder against Sirius.

"You've still got my hand, Moony."

"Oh!" said Remus. "Um."

"I don't mind," said Sirius. "You can hold on to me if it helps you feel better."

This was unusual behaviour, Remus knew. Boys of sixteen did not sit on ruins in the early morning, all alone in the countryside and holding hands. He couldn't seem to let go of Sirius, though. He could feel Sirius' pulse where the delicate bones in their wrists were pressed together under the itchy cuffs of rucked up sleeves.

"D'you ever just feel strange, Moony?" asked Sirius in a way that managed to be abrupt and dreamy all at once.

"Strange how?" Remus was wearing Sirius' jumper and trousers, he realized suddenly, and Sirius was wearing one of Remus' jumpers and his own spare trousers.

"Strange like...strange," said Sirius, oddly inarticulate. "I hoped you'd be here this morning."

"I didn't know where you'd gone," said Remus, feeling as lost in the conversation as he had when he'd woken up to find himself alone. Something about Sirius put him off balance and always had. Sirius was _more_ than the others. He meant more. Remus fought the feeling, but he knew Sirius would be the one who would show up at his door in ten years, rough around the edges and full of conversation.

"You're going to be a prefect," said Sirius. "Will you still hang about with us unruly hooligans then?"

"Of course, but I don't think..."

"Moony," said Sirius quietly. He turned his face to Remus, noses almost brushing. Remus thought he could wander for hours in the labyrinth of Sirius' striated irises. "Moony," said Sirius again, and Remus knew Sirius had talked someone into giving him a scone: there was a touch of cinnamon on Sirius' breath.

"I feel strange," said Remus, and Sirius kissed him. Remus' fingers tightened around Sirius' and he wasn't sure his heart was still beating. Sirius' lips were soft and his mouth tasted like scone and tea with too much cream. Remus felt ancient and incredibly alive. He'd never done anything like this. It was all he could have wished. He tried to press himself against Sirius but their thin sharp shoulders pressed painfully against each other and they broke away from each other.

Remus felt a swell of love under his breastbone, a vertiginous invincible feeling. He was flying, and for once he was unafraid.

"Moony," began Sirius again, but Remus put a finger to his lips.

"Words later," he said. "For now, just do that again."

The morning sun caught in the dew and in Sirius' eyes, all bright as if the world were new again.


End file.
